Microsoft has stolen a march on rival Apple by signing a deal with a digital music company backed by singer Peter Gabriel to launch the first internet download service in Europe to sell individual tracks.

The new venture will be accessed through Microsoft's Windows Media Player software and will allow users to download songs from a choice of more than 200,000 by major artists.

Users of Waves' version 4 plug-ins can now download a free update allowing them to be used with Digital Performer 4.1 and Audio Unit host applications running under Mac OS X.

The updates comes in the form of two new downloadable Wave Shell installers. The MAS Wave Shell is supported for use with Digital Performer 4.1 running under OS X 10.2. The Audio Unit version is officially certified and supported for use with Logic Audio 6.1 (a stability issue is corrected in version 6.2), Peak 4.0, and Spark 2.8. The Waves Audio Unit plug-ins will be visible to any compatible host application, but the company notes some cases where applications can fail to load with the Wave Shell installed.

The Wave Shells are available now for free from the Waves web site, and requires Mac OS X 10.2 with V4 plug-ins installed.

Edirol announced the immediate availability of the Pro Expansion Kit for the DV-7 family which comprises an expanded software suite, written manuals and a multi-port flash card reader, that accepts all currently available flash card formats, a lot of improvements and additions.
The Pro Expansion Kit can be added to the DV-7 by the user simply inserting the Pro Expansion Kit CD ROM software disk, and allowing the machine to update itself.
Suggested retail price £399

Roland is now shipping the RS-50 Synthesizer. RS-50 features improved sounds, hundreds of new CD-quality sounds that can be called up via simple Direct Access Buttons, plus cool performance features including a D Beam controller, arpeggiator and chord memory, all at an affordable price.

BOSS is now shipping the new BR-864 8-Track Digital Studio. With 8 primary recording tracks, 64 Virtual Tracks, COSM effects and USB, the BR-864 offers a powerful, easy and portable 8-track recording solution. The BR-864 records to a 128MB Compact Flash card (included) for over an hour of high-quality recording. A built-in USB port makes it easy to load and convert WAV/AIFF files from a Mac directly into a track or export songs for CD-burning and MP3 creation. It's also a great way to archive and back up song data. Connections to the BR-864 include a 1/4-inch Instrument/Hi-Z Instrument input, XLR and 1/4-inch Microphone inputs, a stereo RCA Line input, stereo RCA Line output, a Headphone output, S/PDIF digital output and USB port. The BR-864 runs on batteries or optional AC power.